


Good Luck

by summoninglupine



Category: AKB48, AKB48 & Related Fandoms, でんぱ組.inc | Dempagumi.inc
Genre: Gen, Idols, Nerdiness, Nervousness, audition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summoninglupine/pseuds/summoninglupine
Summary: It's early 2007, and, framed in the doorway, watching the new girls await their turn to proclaim their talents before an audience of judges, Oshima Yuko finds herself baffled and frustrated by the presence of this one girl, thisone girlthat keeps coming back, no matter how many times she is turned away.
Kudos: 4





	Good Luck

This girl was awkward as heck, she thought, watching her nervous movements from a distance; what, she asked herself, the heck was her problem? What a weirdo, Oshima Yuko thought, standing in the doorway, shaking her head, her arms folded across her chest; what an absolute _weirdo_.

She tried to think back to when she had gone through the year before, when she had endured the humiliation of auditioning, that weird mix of exhibiting vulnerability and the need to sell herself, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth, the topic of the group’s most recent and decidedly provocative single coming again to mind, long days on the set of the music video dressed in school uniform, mouthing words of excitement and desire, words that even to her seemed a little too forward. But it was a job, she had told her parents, and she was already 18-years-old, and this was sometimes the kind of thing you had to do if you wanted to make it as in this industry; which, didn’t make it any easier, didn’t make it any more palatable.

Looking across the room at the girl with her dark hair tied up in bunches, her face displaying frequent doubt, uncertainty writ large upon her small, round face, she felt a sense of discomfort at just how open she was, at just how on display her vulnerability was. Furukawa Mirin, Oshima remembered the girl’s introduction from the last audition; Furukawa Mirin, who, without fail, turned up at every one of these events, and every time, was turned away as not being suitable.

Have some self-respect, Oshima wanted to shout at the girl, almost two full years her senior, maybe being an idol simply isn’t for you, maybe you’re not cut out for this; Jesus, she wanted to say, don’t you have any dignity? And yet here she was again, her anxiety telegraphed ahead of her to everyone in the room, her expression full of doubt and uncertainty. 

No matter how many times she tried, Oshima simply could not understand the motives of these girls who seemed so hell-bent on becoming idols. In passing, she had heard Kashiwagi discuss with embarrassment the time she had auditioned for Morning Musume and been turned away, and Oshima simply didn’t get it, she couldn’t understand the coyness, the shame, and the damn reverence she still carried for the group. A job was a job, she thought, and she was only in this so she could get on with the business of acting; all of this coquettishness and devotion for ancient groups like Onyanko Club or whatever just got her back up—even Akimoto, their producer, by all standards an adult man, seemed to have this weird obsession with them.

She rolled her eyes with disgust. That stuff was not for her, all that cutesiness, all that sickening, saccharine sentiment. No thanks, she thought, no one took girls like that seriously.

Across the room, shifting nervously in her chair, the girl suddenly looked up, and Oshima’s eyes widened as she realised that she must have sensed her glare. Weakly, Furukawa smiled in her direction. Hey, perhaps she even recognises you, Oshima thought to herself, perhaps she even knows who you are. She did not smile back, fighting the urge, pushing the initial instinct down. No way, she told the older girl in her head, no way are you getting reassurance from me, you’re on your own with this.

She could never imagine a girl like Furukawa being accepted, could never imagine her as being part of AKB. She was too lanky, too awkward, too weird, no one would want to see this girl in a bikini, surely; what kind of charm, she asked herself, did a girl like Furukawa Mirin have? And yet still, across the room, seated awkwardly on the plastic chair they had offered her, the same kind Oshima remembered well from school, waiting amongst countless other girls for the audition to start, she radiated a kind of hopeless hopefulness that pulled at Oshima’s heartstrings, that same feeling she had had when she found that pregnant cat in a parking lot in middle school, and convinced her mother that they needed to take her in, the house flooded with mewling kittens a week or two later.

Despite herself, she smiled. Furukawa’s expression collapsed with relief, and Oshima thought she was going to start crying right there and then. Not knowing what to do, the younger girl simply raised her fists in a gesture of solidarity, and, thinking again of that cat in the parking lot, mouthed two words:

“Good luck.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reading the details of [Lurkette](http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?/user/142850-lurkette)'s translation of the [history](http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?/blog/1529/entry-13495-translation-the-crossover-of-akiba-kei-culture-part-2) of Dempagumi.inc last night, I woke abruptly this morning, with the need to write this. Sorry!


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